The amount of money the United States has spent on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq surpassed the $1 trillion mark last week, according to the National Priorities Project Cost of War counter. To date, more than $747 billion has been appropriated for the war in Iraq and $299 billion for the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. is spending more than $136 billion on the wars this year.

Former President Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower highlighted the wanton waste of war when he declared, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone.

"It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. ... Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. ... Is there no other way the world may live?"